


The Seven Stages of a Change

by blackkat



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern, Disability, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-27
Updated: 2011-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-20 23:42:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In movies, people's lives changed dramatically. But Allen's life changed in the middle of a sunny day, and after an absence of over three years, nothing can ever be the same again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Stage: Calcination

**Author's Note:**

> _**A/N:**_ _This just kinda…appeared. I read a sad book, and was in the mood for something painful, and this was the result. It_ will _be Yullen, but Kanda only makes a cameo appearance in this chapter, and the focus is on Laven/TykixLavi, plus some angst._

**Stages of Transformation**

**First Stage:**

_  
**Calcination**   
_

_The heating of a substance in a crucible or over an open flame until it is reduced to ashes. Also the process where one is assaulted by the trials and tribulations of life._

_._

It was a depressingly _normal_ day, when Allen thought back on it. Not too hot, not too cold, spring still holding on and summer just getting its foot in the door. In movies, people's lives changed during ferocious storms or right after some horrible—or, sometimes, tear-jerkingly wonderful—revelation that signaled the start of something new.

But Allen's life changed in the middle of a sunny day, when he was walking contentedly to the university with Lavi, his boyfriend of four years.

Four happy, wonderful years. It was nowhere near their anniversary, though, like in the movie that Allen had dragged Lavi to see just the week before. They weren't even quite sure they _had_ an anniversary, since they had sort of _fallen together_ in high school. Lavi had been everyone's friend, but too smart for his own good. Allen was the one that everybody liked, but no one was close to. After one of Lavi's jokes—and he played far too many of them for his health, and everyone else's—had ended with them locked in the library together, they had been inseparable. After that, with the ease of two puzzle pieces sliding together, they just _were_.

On that sunny, not-hot-not-cold morning, Lavi had stopped on the corner of the street, trying to find his ID card. Allen had laughed at him, because Lavi, for all that he was a genius, was an idiot, too, and constantly misplacing things. It was a Friday, when not too many people had classes, and most students had already finished their finals and were out for the summer. The road was quiet, but Allen, as he always did—to the point of a neurosis, after his guardian had been hit by a drunk driver while crossing the street when Allen was a child—still checked that the crosswalk light was green before stepping out into the street.

Someone ran the red light, and that was all it took.

Lavi would always remember the sound, just as his fingers closed around the little plastic card—screaming tires, the wet, flesh-muffled _crack_ of bones snapping against immovable metal, and the _thud-thud-smack_ as something human-sized—five feet, six inches and a hundred and thirty pounds, if even that—fell to the pavement and did not move again.

No, Lavi would never forget. Not the way the horrifically crumpled form lay there, white hair slowly turning scarlet, or the way the driver had thrown himself from his car, cell phone clattering from his hand—he had been texting, the ambulance driver told Lavi later, her voice gravel-rough with grief, disgust, and anger—and screaming things that faded to white noise, or the way Allen _had not moved_ , even when Lavi and the security guard from the gate turned him over carefully and checked for breathing, tried to find a pulse. They had, but it had not made Lavi feel any better.

The paramedics, because they were good people and Allen was an orphan, let Lavi ride with them back to the hospital, where they immediately rushed the still, still form into surgery, shouting things that Lavi distantly filed away to ask about later. They left him in the waiting room, and he had sat in the cold, badly padded chairs until he thought he would go mad. This, he reflected, must be what it was like to be smothered: waiting, desperately waiting, trying to draw breath even when you know there is no hope, attempting with all your strength to lift whatever is holding you down, but finding it immovable as your arms grow weaker and your mind dims towards darkness.

When Lenalee arrived, and the doctor emerged to give them the news, he could not even bring himself to cry.

* * *

Allen did not wake up that day, or the next, or the next. Lavi sat by his bed in the cheerfully painted room they moved him to after surgery—where the doctor came out shaking his head and muttering things about comas and brain damage and spinal fractures and the hardships of operating on people who already had such deformed limbs and special blood types—until he could not remember ever being anywhere else, and the nurses no longer attempted to cajole him into getting some fresh air or something to eat. He would have stayed there forever, he thought, but Lenalee and his old man—the makeup coupled with the dark bags under his eyes making him look more like a panda than ever, though Lavi couldn't even bring himself to snicker at the sight—finally dragged him away. He had protested at first, demanding that he would stay, on the rapidly fading chance that Allen would wake up and need someone by him, but his objections were weak and he knew it. So Lenalee dragged him off to the university, with the promise of returning to the hospital as soon as the day was done.

They entered and left through the back gate, Lavi being unable to even think about passing the point where the accident—and how he _hated_ that word, because it was not an accident that had happened to Allen, but a travesty, for there was no one as bright and beautiful and kind and funny and caring and a million other adjectives Lavi couldn't bear to apply to the lifeless body in that hospital room—had robbed him of his everything.

Lenalee had brought his books, and she and his other friends walked him to every one of his classes, sat with him during lunch, and tried to get him to laugh at anything and everything. But there was nothing to be done. His mind was still in that cheerful room, staring at the partially shaved skull with its nearly obscene tufts of white hair. He remembered how silky that hair was, when he ran his fingers through it, or when Allen leaned against his shoulder while they watched TV in their small, yet homey, apartment. But thoughts like that invariably led him back to images of gentle eyes, thundercloud grey when worried, misty grey when sad, liquid mercury when laughing. Eyes that could very well never open again.

It had been two weeks since that sunny morning, and Lavi had never even thought about the one who was the cause of it all, too busy worrying about Allen, too fixated on the thought that he might not recover, to consider the man who had put him in that hospital bed to begin with. So when Lavi walked into his Advanced Literature class and saw the driver from that morning sitting with a group of friends, laughing and joking with his thumbs still flying over the keyboard of his phone, it all hit him in one horrible, mind-numbing blow.

Lavi thought the guy was lucky that all he had broken was his phone. He would have broken more, but Professor Reever had pulled them apart before anything else could happen.

That day had set the tone for the months that followed. Lavi would go to class, do what he needed to pass, then head for the hospital. He would stay there for as long as he could convince the night-shift nurses to let him, then go home to his unbearably empty and quiet apartment, collapse into bed, and sleep until the morning, when he would get up and begin the cycle all over again. The only bright point was seeing the driver of the car—who still seemed horrifically indifferent to his crime—have to pay Allen's hospital bills. Lavi had heard somewhere that this was not the first time his wealthy parents had had to cover up a mistake, though Lavi wished he could make sure it was the last—last mistake, last act, last day alive, he didn't care. He only cared that Allen had been in a coma for five months now, and there had been no change.

But, no matter how slowly, the block of ice that his heart had become slowly began to melt. Lavi was, after all, still a person who craved closeness, and loved people. As much as it pained him, Allen was not enough warmth anymore, and he was slowly suffocating.

* * *

"Lavi, I'm not letting you go back." Lenalee crossed her arms, standing firmly in front of the door to Lavi's apartment. It would have been more impressive if she had not been an inch shorter than even Allen, and twenty pound lighter, but she was still an obstacle in Lavi's daily routine that he could not wrap his mind around. Startled, he stopped collecting the homework he planned to do at the hospital, and just looked at her.

Lenalee stared right back. "Lavi, you're killing yourself! Allen wouldn't want that! You can't keep doing this." He voice softened and she took his hand, giving him the look that never failed to bend someone to her will. "The doctors said that there's only the slimmest hope of him ever waking up, and that could be years from now, or never. How long are you going to keep torturing yourself?"

But this time, even Lenalee's pleading eyes did nothing to sway him—though they planted the smallest, niggling seed of doubt in the back of his mind. He pushed past her and took the subway to the hospital, then sat in Allen's room wondering how he had gone from being the happiest person in the world to an automaton that knew only the most rudimentary of functions.

But there was no answer from the white-haired boy in his perfectly-made bed, and Lavi continued on as he had been. Another six months went by, and nothing changed.

Until, suddenly, it did.

Lavi was walking towards the university's science building, mentally reviewing the material for Inorganic Chemistry, when he nearly walked into a man standing in front of the campus directory. He was tall, over six feet, with dark hair and olive skin, and was muttering under his breath in what Lavi recognized as Portuguese. Lavi, being who he was, stopped and offered to help the man find what he was looking for.

The international student, Tyki Mikk, just happened to be looking for the science building, and was grateful enough that he invited Lavi out for coffee after class.

Feeling warm for the first time in almost a year, Lavi said yes.

* * *

_Hey, Allen. Can you hear me? I've been talking to you in this room for a year and a half now, and you've never so much as twitched. You always did say my conversations were one-sided, but never quite to this degree, huh?_

_The nurses all look at me funny, still talking to you after all this time. But I can't help it. You're my best friend, Allen. I love you so much. Remember when we were stupid kids, always getting into trouble? It was mostly me in trouble, though, I guess. No one ever could get mad at you. All you had to do was flash that smile, and they all melted. Never realized the extent of your own charm, though, did you? You were always good like that, so good, no matter how much you hated your past and your arm and everything else that made you_ different _. Your word, not mine. I loved everything you were, everything you are, everything about you and around you and inside you. Always, Allen. Always._

_But even stupid kids have to grow up sometime._

_I'll never leave you behind, Allen. I'll never forget about you. No matter what happens, or where we go, you'll always be in my heart. But now…_

_God. You've no idea how hard this is to say. And you're not even awake to hear it. How can it be this hard?_

_Now there's someone else in my heart, too, someone who's funny and kind and warm, and he asked me to go out with him. Not as a short fling, but something_ real _. I forgot just how much I missed 'real,' being here all the time, where everything's so dreamlike. I know that, if you were awake, you'd blame yourself for keeping me here, but it's not like that. I will never, ever regret even one moment of the time I spent with you, Allen. Ever. When we were lovers, when we were friends—hell, even when we were strangers—we were so tightly connected that being without you feels like losing a piece of myself that I can never get back. Every second with you was happy enough to fill a lifetime. How could I ever regret that?_

_But I miss people. I miss being able to hold someone, or be held. I miss dates, and conversations, and sitting next to someone in silence, knowing—even without words—that we're both thinking the same thing._

_It's been almost two years, Allen._

_I'm sorry, but I'm moving on._

* * *

Three springs had passed since that sunny day that changed everything. Lavi didn't come very often anymore, just once a month or so, because it was too awkward to ask your current lover to wait outside for you while you talked to you old lover's unresponsive body. Lenalee came more often, always once a week at least and usually with her brother, who hovered mournfully at the edges of the room while Lenalee settled fresh flowers from their shop on every available surface. Sometimes, she dragged her childhood friend, Kanda, with her, though those visits were even rarer than Lavi's. Kanda had never been close to Allen's usual group of friends, and couldn't be bothered to visit a motionless lump that he hardly knew.

Marian Cross, Allen's absentee guardian, had not been in contact for some time, and only returned a few months after Lavi's decision to go on with his life. When he had discover his ward's condition, he had been horrified, and enraged, and many other things Lenalee still did not like to remember—and above all, he had been helpless, which was not something he was used to. It caused a change that no one had ever expected: Cross, the womanizing, chain-smoking drunkard, cleaned up his act. He bought a house, got a job, cleared his debts—no one wanted to look too deeply into the _how_ of that one—and settled down with the ferocious, feisty blond woman who owned one of the coffee shops near the university. Or at least, settled down as much as was possible for someone like him. His fights with Cloud still roused the whole neighborhood and terrified passersby, but Lenalee could see that he was content, if not happy, and smiled whenever he slinked into Allen's hospital room to rant about the "violent, man-hating harpy" who had taken over his home.

It was during one such visit, when Cross was just reaching the high point of his tirade, that Lenalee suddenly noticed that Allen's hand was not in the same place it had been a second ago. Hardly daring to hope, she lifted her careful gaze to his face, and was met by a pair of confused silver eyes that were, without a doubt, finally awake.

* * *

Lenalee cried for almost two hours. Komui cried, too, when he came to pick up his sister and found that the boy who was like a younger brother to him was, at long last, back in the world of the living. Even Cross shed a tear or two, when he was certain no one was watching—though in front of the others he was just as gruff and rough as ever. Allen was first confused, then worried, then disbelieving, and finally shocked when the doctors told him how much time had passed. He sat completely still for a long time, almost as though he had returned to that coma-state.

And when he finally moved again, he asked the one question that nearly made Lenalee start crying again.

"Where's Lavi?"

* * *

Lavi was, at that moment, on a weekend trip to the ocean with Tyki. As soon as he got the message, they drove back, but the silence in the car was, Lavi thought, very much comparable to the suffocating feeling he had felt waiting for Allen to come out of the emergency room. He was not so cruel as to wish that Allen had not woken up, because he still loved him, but, for good or ill, he wished silently that he loved Allen a little less, so that he could comfort his current lover with truthful reassurances of never leaving him, or that Allen had lost his memories, and forgotten about him.

But, unlike in the movies, things never worked out quite so smoothly

* * *

Allen was sitting with Lenalee in the window seat of his new room, one especially designed for patients with visitors, when he heard the door open once again. Hoping it was not yet another nurse come to take his temperature, or his blood pressure, or tell him about the details of his physical therapy, he looked up, and felt his heart grow a thousand times lighter at the sight of the person in the doorway. But after a moment, he noticed that Lavi—one of the most bubbly people in the world—was not smiling in return, and his smile faded, just a little. Sitting behind him, brush in hand, Lenalee paused on her task of untangling his now-long hair and wrapped her arms around his chest in a gesture that was more terrifying, Allen thought, than comforting. This was Lavi, after all. Why would he need comfort?

"Allen." Lavi's voice sounded choked, pained, almost strangled. "How…how are you feeling?"

Allen's smile faded all the way, his face muscles too tired to maintain the expression when his heart was not behind it. Instead, he forced a bit of the cheerfulness he did not feel into his voice. "I'm fine. The doctors say that everything healed the way it should, so all I have to do is learn to walk again and I can go back home."

Instead of erasing the pain from Lavi's face, this made him flinch. Allen stopped, and frowned slightly.

"Lavi? What's the matter? What's wrong?"

Lavi bit the inside of his cheek, as he tended to do whenever he was nervous, and then released it. He wouldn't meet Allen's eyes. "I'm sorry, Allen. I'm sorry."

Allen just stared with wide, uncomprehending eyes as a stranger entered the room and stood next to Lavi, his gaze flickering uncertainly to Allen and then back to the redhead. And with that, Allen understood. He had never been stupid, and that was more than enough of a clue for him to understand this mystery. But the worry on Lavi's face was enough for him to know that this man, whoever he was, was as important to Lavi as Allen himself, if not even more so.

So, even though it felt as though his heart had been torn from his chest and crushed underfoot, he smiled at Lavi's new lover and said politely, "Hello, I'm Allen. It's nice to meet you. I'm glad Lavi has someone who makes him happy."

He didn't cry, even when his eyes burned and his throat ached, but Lenalee's tears were hot and searing where they soaked the shoulder of his hospital-issued pajamas, and they told him all he needed to know.

Allen had meant his words, but there was only so much of a beating that he could stand to take. With a smile, he said that he was tired and sent away everyone except for Lenalee, who refused to go. She held him, and he cried in her arms until he was exhausted and drifted back to sleep, where his dreams welcomed him as though he had never been gone.


	2. First Stage: Calcination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _  
>  **A/N:**   
>  _   
>  _A slow, short chapter this time, because that's what it wanted to be. Again, no Yullen, and not even a cameo by Kanda this time. But it's coming. And I needed a bridge, something to show how Allen goes back to the normal world and how it feels for him. I've personally never been in a coma, so I can only hypothesize about the recovery process, so if I've gotten something glaringly wrong and you know it, please let me know._

**Stages of Transformation**

**Second Stage:**

_  
**Dissolution**  
_

_The dissolving of the ashes from Calcination in water; a further breaking down of the artificial structures of the psyche by total immersion in the unconscious, non-rational, or rejected part of the mind. Also the process in which the conscious mind lets go of control to allow the surfacing of buried emotions or material._

.

The movies always made it seem so easy. Years of muscle atrophy could be overcome in moments, in the time it took to change scenes. Characters opened their eyes, stepped out of bed, saved the day, and went on with their previous lives. Thirty-eight months of absolute stillness was nothing compared to what people in movies suffered, but they went on to leap from skyscrapers, have mad car chases, and fall in love all over again.

But life was not like that.

Allen, after realizing for the first time that he could not even lift a hand without help, nearly gave up. It was overwhelming, the thought of having to relearn every muscle movement he had known since birth, and until he could do so he was so disgustingly _weak_.

He thought, bitterly, when he was alone in his room in the dead of night, that Lavi had been smart to leave him.

But Allen could no more _really_ give up than Lavi could live without warmth. He knew it, and so he didn't simply resign himself to immobility. He spent hours each day with the therapist, figuring out how to move first one finger, then another, and then all five of them. A week—seven long, agonizing days of being unbearably _confined_ in that small, narrow bed with beeping machines and flashing lights and no peace, ever, without the ability to move to feed himself or relieve himself or even hold a book—after he started his therapy, he could hold a ball without dropping it. Three days after that, he could hold a pencil. Another week and he could lift the pencil for a few seconds, and hold a normal conversation without drifting out of focus or being short of breath. His feeling of wonder and accomplishment, he thought, was surely comparable to that which Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay must have felt when they were the first to stand on the summit of Mount Everest.

Lenalee was a godsend, in those first painful days. She rarely left his side except to eat and sleep. She was there the first time he managed to lift his arm alone, and she looked as overjoyed as if it were _her_ accomplishment. She ate with him, and read him books, and told him all the news and gossip that he had missed, and never made him feel as though it were a _bother_ for him to have been in a deep coma for over three years. Instead, it felt—when she was with him, and he was not alone with his increasingly darker thoughts—as though he had simply been on an extended trip. Allen was grateful for that, and clung to the bright beacon of her presence like a drowning man to a life preserver.

He tried not to think about how it hurt that Lavi did not come to see him again.

Life at the university was still the same, according to Lenalee. She was still studying Business, and had plans to open three more flower shops in different parts of the city. The professors were the same, quirky and idiosyncratic as ever. Lavi was getting his PhD in forensics, and had been scouted by the FBI. His grandfather, who everyone simply called Bookman for his love of old books, had finally opened a tea shop on the corner near the hospital and was, with Lenalee's advice, buying the bookstore next door to the teahouse. Bak was still a stalker, Krory was still bipolar, Miranda was still as timid as a mouse in a snake pit, and Marie was still gently courting her without her knowing it. Allen was relieved that nothing had changed very much.

Nothing, that is, except for the fact that there was now a Lavi-sized hole where his heart had been.

Lenalee had glossed over everything that included mention of Tyki, the new boyfriend—though, Allen supposed, it wasn't fair to call him "new" when they had been dating for a year and a half, and gave every impression of long-term commitment. So there were holes in Allen's knowledge, too, and not just his heart. He was glad of them, though. It was easier to pretend that Lavi and his partner did not exist—difficult, considering that Lavi had been the core of Allen's world for four years, but still far easier than facing the fact that Lavi _was never coming back_. Oh, he might have offered, or even done so, if Allen had confronted him and demanded it. But Lavi, like Allen, was ignoring their years together in lieu of focusing on what was in front of him, and pretending that there were no ties to sever, no bonds that had yet to be broken. And, in doing so, he was cutting those bonds. Not a clean cut, but messy and painful and leaving ragged threads behind, a few still connected and not completely severed, dripping blood and anguish in a way that no bandage or pint of chocolate ice cream could fix.

Allen might have asked him to come back, in the beginning, but now he wasn't sure that was even what he wanted. How could he ask Lavi to upend his life, once again, just because Allen was feeling lonely? Lavi must have suffered, all the time that Allen was in a coma, and he was finally happy again. The happiness was with someone else, but Allen couldn't completely begrudge him for it. He couldn't say what he would or would not do in the same situation, and he really did want Lavi to be happy. If that meant he could no longer so much as look at Allen, well…It hurt, but Allen could accept it, even if he hated it.

* * *

It was a month into his recovery, and Allen was just able to sit up on his own, when Lenalee delicately broached the subject of living arrangements.

"Allen," she said tactfully, "what are you going to do after this? The therapist said that you can safely go home in a week, as long as you come back for your appointments."

Allen paused in the process of turning a page in his book, looking up in puzzlement. What did she mean? After all, he had an apartment, didn't he? And the landlord wouldn't have been able to cancel the lease, not with—

Oh.

Lavi.

Lavi, who now slept in someone else's arms every night. Who cooked for someone else, and did the dishes with someone else, and danced in the living room with someone who was not Allen. Lavi, who was no longer Allen's beloved, his lover, his best friend and home and _absolutely everything_ , and would never be again.

Allen forced out the question that he did not want to ask, but had to anyway, and if felt like each word was a piece of broken glass coming up his throat, tearing through the hasty mask of composure he attempted to erect. "Lavi…lives with Tyki now?"

Lenalee nodded, twisting her hands in her lap unhappily. "He put your things in storage and… Well, after they… He said there were too many memories, and it felt like he was betraying you, staying there with Tyki. They got another apartment, near the beach."

It felt like betraying him? Couldn't Lavi have thought of that, have _felt_ that, when he first started fucking the other man? The words wanted to some out so badly, they burned, but Allen locked his jaw and kept them inside, refusing to let Lenalee see just how deep his pain and sullen, smoldering bitterness ran. He tried not to resent them, really he did, but it felt horribly like Lavi had everything and Allen had been left with…nothing.

"Oh. And Cross—"

Lenalee barely contained a shudder. "I don't think you want to live with those two, even though Cross offered."

Allen thoroughly agreed. He had met Cloud, and she seemed like a wonderful person and just the type his guardian needed, but he didn't want to be anywhere _close_ to either of them when they disagreed—as he was certain they did, frequently and loudly.

"Would you stay with Komui and me?" Lenalee asked after a moment of silence, where they both contemplated the horrors that were Cross's domestic life. "We have an extra room that's not being used, and I'll be there to help with the therapy. It's only a few minutes from the hospital, too, and we would both love to have you."

Komui would only love it because he was certain that Allen, being gay, was no threat to his dear sister, but it was a heartfelt offer and Allen was grateful. He really had nowhere else to go. All of his scholarships were currently pending his readmission to school, so he couldn't use them to pay for an apartment, and the settlement from the accident would cover the physical therapy and little else. He was an orphan whose former guardians had all been poor, and he himself had no savings. The only reason he had been able to attend the university in the first place was because of grants and scholarships and a few donations from people who had heard him play in clubs or cafés. Being a Music major was not all that impressive to those giving out financial aid, and Allen had struggled for a long time to get as far as he had on talent alone.

"All right," he agreed, with a smile that he could not feel. "Thank you, Lenalee."

* * *

Another month went by almost identical to the first, and Allen often thought about how funny it was that people always said "times change." They didn't, really, or at least not for him. Not since he had woken up. It was still odd, to see the date so different from what he remembered. To him, it seemed like only a day or two had passed. He had simply gone to sleep, and the next time he woke up, it was in an entirely different world.

Not unlike, he believed, what Rip Van Winkle must have felt, waking up a hundred years into the future and not quite sure how he had gotten there.

His therapy continued, with Komui driving him in for his appointments three times a week. At the last one, they had finally let him stand up and take a few steps unaided, and though his legs had burned for hours afterwards, it had been akin to walking on the moon for him, so out of reach for so long, and now finally, _finally_ within his grasp. He was still confined to a wheelchair most of the time, but the therapist had said that very soon, if he continued to do so well, he could be upgraded to crutches, and then they would see how it went. There had been some therapy even while he was in the coma, to keep his muscles from atrophying, but the rest of the work had to be accomplished now that he was awake.

Allen was grateful for it, in a way, even though it made him ache like an old man and left him exhausted at the end of the day. It gave him something to work towards, something to push for, and a way to forget the one thing that could not be forgotten.

Lavi.

Lavi was always there, constantly, incessantly, hovering just out of sight, a phantom with red hair and a cheeky grin. He never _actually_ came, but Allen had built his life around Lavi, after the death of yet another guardian and Cross's questionable adoption. For four years, they had lived together, slept together, laughed together, and made a life together. Allen, for all that he had been sleeping alone for three years, was not used to a cold bed, or the absence of a loving touch on his shoulder, or not having a lapful of redhead while he read on the couch. Lavi had always been there, touching, chuckling, teasing, joking, dancing, moving. He was an exhausting, inexhaustible whirlwind of energy, and Allen had never thought there would come a time when he could hate peace and stillness. But now he did. Every moment where there was not noise, or action, or something to do, he remembered when there _was_ , and his mind could not make the connection between _then_ and _now_ , because for him it had only be a few moments. How did everything change so much in just a few moments?

And while the kindness that Lenalee gave him was one of the reasons he could keep going, it was not enough. He loved her, but he did not _love_ her. Having Lavi so close, but so far away, was torture. At least when Allen had been in a coma, there had been the hope that he would wake up. Now, Allen had no hope that Lavi would ever come back to him, and it felt as though everything inside of him was slowly being crushed into nothingness.

Everyone else had moved on, but Allen could not.

* * *

One of the few bright points in his days was the fact that Lavi— _and there he was again, inescapable as death and far more heartrending_ —had kept Allen's piano in his new apartment, and had periodically bullied the university piano professor, Howard Link, into coming over and tuning it. Komui, Lenalee, Krory, Marie, and Cross had, together, retrieved it and managed to cart the instrument all the way across town, to install it in the flower shop.

Allen felt more at peace there, with the gift from Neah, his first guardian, than anywhere else, because he could sit in the open-fronted shop, surrounded by plants and floral scents and more flowers then he could name or even count, and play whatever he wished. Sometimes, people on the street would stop to listen, and clap politely when he finished, and come in and buy some flowers. Lenalee enjoyed the increase in business, as well as the fact that Allen seemed content while playing, and could often be heard muttering about installing more instruments in the new shops she was planning.

Allen said nothing to anyone about his feeling—because he never had, and that was just how he was—but instead, he would release them with his music. Sometimes, it would be angry, a fierce thunderclap of sound that seemed as though it could shake the very world. Other times, it we be soft and light, so heartbreakingly sad that one heard it and could do nothing but cry. But it was still Allen's music, as it had ever been, and so sweet that it stayed in the heart like a good pain, or the ache that came from witnessing something incredibly beautiful.

And so Allen played, and remembered, and mourned for everything that had left him behind, and the wounds bled but did not fester.

In this way, gradually, like poison seeping from a wound, Allen's life resettled, and though it was still painful and often left him feeling ill at ease and out of place, like a snowy dove among a flock of ravens, it was a life. Allen just wished that he did not feel as though he were slowly drowning in it. Another two weeks went by, and nothing changed.

Until, suddenly—as had happened to Lavi—

It did.

* * *


	3. Third Stage: Separation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _  
>  **A/N:**   
>  _   
>  _Again, rather slow. I guess that's just how this story is coming out, so I'll roll with it. Anyway, updates will be slowing down a little (sorry!), as I have, in a fit of temporary insanity, subjected myself to the insane course load of 21 credits, and will no longer have time to_   
>  **breathe**   
>  _, let alone write frequently. I_   
>  _  
>  **will**   
>  _   
>  _continue this story, never fear, but fanfics will unfortunately be taking a backseat to my studies. Sorry, but I'm rather attached to my full scholarship, and want to keep it._

**Stages of Transformation**

**Third Stage:**

_  
**Separation**  
_

_The isolation of the components of Dissolution by filtration and the discarding of any unworthy material; the rediscovery and reclaiming of dreams previously rejected by the rational part of our minds. Also a conscious process that reviews formerly hidden material and decides what to discard and what to reintegrate into the new or refined element._

.

They still would not let Allen have crutches, but as he could now walk a few feet under his own power, it did not bother him as it once might have. His arms had gained enough strength to play the piano for a good period of time, and he could roll his wheelchair by himself, as long as the ground was smooth. Because he was doing better—and, Allen suspected, to help him get away from the rather overwhelming care of Jerry, who ran the restaurant next door—Lenalee would sometimes let him stay at the park in the city while she ran errands.

Allen would park the wheelchair at a bench, then painfully, cautiously, arduously drag himself out of it, onto the grass, and into the center of one particular grove that he had always loved. It held memories of Lavi, of course—for what these days did not?—but it held other things as well. Neah had brought him here, before his cancer had killed him. Mana had brought him here, too, to be closer to their memories of Neah. The others after them and between them had allowed Allen to do as he wished, mostly, and he had come here as often as possible. He and Lavi had picnicked here, and watched the clouds, and listened to music while lying on the soft green grass. It was here that they had shared their first kiss, a kiss that was so easy and gentle and soft that it still seemed like a dream.

But Allen didn't think on those things, when he was in the grove. It was a place of peace, where he could just _be_. And today, he needed all the peace the grove had to offer, after having seen what he had that morning.

Nothing bad, or wrong, or horrifying. Nothing like that. Just two people walking on the beach, not even hand in hand. Just walking, and smiling at each other, and shattering any hope Allen might have had that Lavi and Tyki would not haunt him forever. Shattering any hope that this pain might vanish someday. That he was all right without Lavi.

Even now, he couldn't cry. He had done all of his crying in the hospital room, when he was still too weak to move. But now…If he had ever wanted to cry, to sob, to scream and rant and hurl curses at the sheer _injustice_ of the world, it was now. He had seen Tyki and Lavi on the beach, walking along the swath of dark sand at the edge of the ocean. They had not touched one another, or been doing anything out of the ordinary, but they had _looked_ at each other. Allen remembered what those looks were like—only one person reflected in your eyes, and only one person in theirs, the whole world just a soundless expanse of beauty and perfection, a place where nothing could ever go wrong because you were _loved_ and you knew it, and you loved in return.

Once, Allen had been able to see that look in Lavi's eyes every time he glanced at him, and it had made him feel as though he were dying of happiness to know that _he_ was the one in Lavi's mind and heart.

Now, he saw someone else in Lavi's eyes and felt as though he were dying of misery.

He had thought he was—at least somewhat—over it.

It appeared not.

Taking a deep breath that shuddered just a little bit with unshed tears and unvoiced sobs, Allen rolled onto his back and stared up through the dappling leaves. This far into summer, they were not emerald, but deep olive-drab, paling to burnt-brown around the edges. What sunlight managed to slide past the gently wavering branches spilled over his skin like honey, and he tried his hardest not to think about anything but the warm, lazy smell of grass and earth and summer sky. It was easier here than it might have been elsewhere, because here, everything felt like a dream. Allen could dismiss anything, banish it to the back of his mind, and pretend that it was just an unpleasant nightmare. It was so much simpler than facing it, and losing control.

Above all else, Allen prized his control. After all, it was the only thing he had left.

* * *

"This is horrible, Lavi. Don't you know what you're doing to him?" Lenalee put her coffee cup down as she stared at her friend, the boy who had been with her since high school, and was one of the precious few who made up her entire world. She didn't think she had ever been quite this angry with him. "You broke his heart, and you don't even have the courtesy to apologize."

Lavi sighed, looking down at his plate. The café was bustling, but around them, time stood still. "What do I say, Lenalee? 'I'm sorry, Allen, for leaving you in the hospital in the moment when you needed me the most, but I love Tyki and want to pretend as if you never existed. Oops, my mistake, but can you just forget the fact that we were lovers and partners for four years?' Somehow, I don't think that would go over well. Allen isn't the type to respond well to brutal honesty."

Lenalee sighed, too, rubbing her temples. "You still love Allen, don't you? Can't you at least _try_? Or do you love Tyki more?"

"More?" Lavi shrugged and shook his head. "Of course I still love Allen. I always will. But…I can't love him in _that_ way anymore. What I had with Allen was so _easy_. It just _happened_. It was like taking a long walk at twilight. That kind of feeling. With Tyki, it's different. It's fire and fury and a deep, deep _want_. What I had with Allen wasn't lacking anything, but it didn't have what I have with Tyki now. I _like_ this feeling. Even for Allen, I can't cut that part out of me. If I did, and went back to him, it wouldn't be fair. I would always want something more than he could give me, and that would make us both miserable."

Lenalee grimaced, transferring her gaze to the coffee in her cup. "I don't know what I do. Neither you nor Allen will listen to me about anything." She turned her cup, watching the dark liquid shimmer. Her eyes were full of something close to loneliness. "It's like, when your relationship ended, everything else broke, too. I can't…I can't _fix_ it, Lavi. And even though I know you and Allen are both different from before, that I should just adjust to it…"

"You wish that we could go back?" Lavi attempted to smile and failed, the expression crumbling as soon as he managed to build it. He rubbed the bridge of his nose instead, good eye closing. "Sometimes…sometimes I wish for that, too. It would be easier, and Allen wouldn't have to hurt anymore. But I love Tyki, Lenalee. I can't change that. And I don't really want to. He made me happy, _makes_ me happy. I was lucky enough to fall in love the first time I had a relationship, but that was nothing compared to what I feel now. Allen will always be special to me, and I hate myself for hurting him, but I'm going to be selfish and do what _I_ want now. I was selfless those first years Allen was in the hospital. I gave up my life for him. Is it so bad to want to live for myself, with someone who thinks I'm everything?"

Lenalee rarely got angry, and it was even rarer for her to get angry with a friend, but at those words, she felt her resentment boiling over. With a loud crash, she slammed her palms down on the table and rose to her feet, hissing. "You weren't all that selfless, Lavi! You were with Allen for almost half a decade, and it took you only eighteen months to give up on him! If it had been Allen waiting, and you in that bed, he would have stayed with you no matter what. No matter how long you were asleep. Allen wouldn't have deserted you the way you did him, and we both know it." Tossing a few bills onto the table to cover her lunch, she snatched up her bag and stormed out of the café, the door slamming shut behind her.

Lavi sighed and dropped his head into his hands, wonder why, if his words were justified, _her_ words sent a spear of anguish through him like a cold knife-blade to the heart.

* * *

Allen felt, with each passing day, more and more as if he was trapped in some strange dream, where everyone he knew had become a wraithlike phantom. They were there, substantial, but only barely, and drifted around him without ever interacting or really touching his world. He grew more distant, one bit at a time, and took to spending most of his free time either playing his piano or sleeping in the park. The former was usually on his good days, when he could force himself to smile at Lenalee and Komui and speak politely. It was odd to him that, while the rest of his muscles were recovering steadily, the muscles he used to smile were still as weak and useless as they had been that first day.

The latter—what he did on a bad day, when he could not bear the thought of more sympathy or kindness or human touch—had become all but routine for him. Lenalee, on her way to oversee the new flower shops, would leave him in the park, and he would spend the rest of the day in a dreamlike trance beneath the trees. Sometimes he would sleep, and sometimes he would just lie there for hours, thinking about everything and nothing at all.

It was during one of these quiet dream-days that it happened.

Allen was lying on his back in the grass, eyes closed, letting the soft melody of the breeze play over him. Once, he would have had a notebook with him, and would have been writing down the tune he heard among the branches and summer-stiff leaves. But now—and ever since his accident—he could not even think about composing, because Lavi had always been the one he played his own songs for, and Lavi was no longer there to hear them.

He was just considering this, and trying to bury the thought beneath the dream-daze he felt, when a shadow fell over him and a sharp voice suddenly flickered through the muggy air, like a whipcrack in the silence.

"Oi, moyashi, are you dead?"

Allen's eyes opened slowly, his mind fighting off the grogginess that wanted to overwhelm him. But the insult—and he recognized the word for what it was, as one of his guardians had been Japanese and had taught him a little, though he only remembered the odd word or phrase here and there—made him just annoyed enough to push down the sun-induced lethargy and look up at the man who had insulted him.

Dark blue eyes, like lapis lazuli at twilight, stared back, set in an angular, arrogant face that was handsome enough that it cut. Allen blinked a few times, taking in the glossy black hair, pulled back in a punishingly tight tail, and the seemingly permanent scowl the other sported. There was only one person in the world who would waste such a handsome face by glowering like that, and Allen knew him, albeit distantly. He frowned, too, for a minute, before the name came to him.

"Oh. Hello, Kanda. What are you doing here?"

Kanda's scowl deepened, and he dropped to the ground with a sharp, " _Tch_." "I'm training."

Allen looked at him truly, and noticed that he wore no shirt. The sun had turned his normally pale skin to bronze, and the rays traced little droplets of sweat as they trickled over hard muscles. Feeling a trace of embarrassment, Allen looked away. His gaze dropped to the sheathed _katana_ Kanda carried.

"Is that still Mugen?"

Kanda looked startled, just slightly—and, even more faintly, he looked pleased. "You remembered its name?"

" _Six Illusions_ , right? I always liked that." Allen smiled slightly, because it was just like Kanda not to care that someone had forgotten Kanda's name, but to be satisfied that someone had remembered what he called his sword.

Kanda ran his fingers up and down the flat of the blade for a moment, letting the silence stretch. Then, gruffly, he said, "Aren't you supposed to be in a coma?"

Allen looked back up at the trees, wondering how everything came back to that. _And Lavi…_ "Maybe…it would be better if I still was." He raised one hand, and watched it tremble with the strain of simply holding it up in an unfamiliar position. "I'm so…weak."

Kanda stared at him strangely for a long moment, but there was no reading the emotions in his narrowed eyes. Then, with a scoffing snort and a shrug, he stood. "So? Get stronger. Don't be weak. You're the only who can decide how strong you are." He turned and walked away.

For several endless seconds, the words rang in Allen's head like a gong's reverberation, and he stared in front of him, wide-eyed.

_Oh. How simple._

_If I don't want to be weak, I have to get stronger._

He might have laughed, if he hadn't been so shocked.

_When you put it like that…_

_It's easy._

Carefully, he pushed himself upright, looking after the other's retreating form. "Kanda?" he called quietly.

The Japanese man gave no indication that he had heard, but he paused slightly and half-turned, staring past the trees at the barely visible ocean. He didn't move.

Allen smiled, and for the first time in a long while, it was a _real_ smile. "Will you be here tomorrow?"

"Baka moyashi." Somehow, Kanda made the insult sound almost charming. "You have to train every day if you want to get stronger."

Allen, his heart feeling lighter than it had in more than three years, took that as an affirmative.

* * *

In a week, Kanda accomplished more than all the months of therapy had. For one, he did not _coddle_. Kanda and coddling were like a prissy cat and a mud bath—they simply did not go together. Allen could not imagine Kanda ever taking it easy on anyone, including—but not limited to—old women, infants, and invalids. As Allen fell firmly into the third category, he was more supportive of this approach than he might have been otherwise. But Kanda never held back, and even when Allen was covered in bruises, battered, and almost too sore to walk, he felt a sense of accomplishment. Kanda had not killed him, and that meant he had held his own.

Secondly, Kanda did not pity him, and had no sympathy. That first, brusque encounter set the tone for every day after, and Allen reveled in it. Here was someone who did not know him, who looked at his pitiful form in the hated wheelchair and did not act as though it were pitiful—or worse yet, act as though it were _not_ pitiful. Kanda simply did not care, and after so long of having everyone care too much, Allen felt liberated by such apathy.

Kanda—who, according to Lenalee, now owned a dojo on the beach—came every day. Sometimes he brought _shinai_ or _bokuto_ , bamboo or wooden practice swords. Sometimes they practiced hand-to-hand, with Kanda showing Allen each step and motion, silently commanding him to follow along without ever actually _saying_ that that was what he wanted. He never invited Allen to train with him, but he would come to the grove, toss down whatever equipment he had brought, and begin warming up. Allen would stand up from his spot in the grass and copy his movements, and while Kanda would never say anything to him, he would always keep the exercises simple and easy, and would stop when it was obvious that Allen couldn't go any farther. Sometimes, afterwards, he would lie in the grass with Allen, and they would not talk, but simply stare up at the softly moving leaves and enjoy the peace. Allen never spoke of what was troubling him, or how he felt, and he was—much to his relief and joy—never asked.

Kanda, for his part, didn't mention either Lavi or the accident after that first time. Whether Lenalee had talked to him or he simply didn't care, Allen wasn't sure, but he was grateful. When he was with Kanda, he felt as though the last few years truly did not exist, and that what he had had with Lavi had been no more than a fleeting delusion. The world stayed misty in Allen's eyes, but it did not get worse, and that was already in improvement over shadows and ghosts and phantom friends. Kanda was sharp and in focus when everything else tended to fade away, and Allen did not question it.

Kanda was not kind. He barely spoke, and when he did, his words had more edges and sharp corners than shattered glass. He insulted Allen regularly. He was brutal, merciless, and had the lowest boiling point of anyone Allen had ever met.

Allen didn't care about any of that, either. He was simply thankful that he was not alone in a world of wraiths and shadows.

Slowly, another week passed and the pattern continued. They would train, then rest, then train again. Kanda never spoke except to growl or bark orders. Allen mimicked everything the man did and never faltered, even when his arms felt like lead and he wanted to collapse. But he was getting stronger. His therapist had mentioned it. Lenalee had mentioned it. Allen _felt_ it, as though his heart was beating a little more strongly each day and he was little less tired each time. All because of those three simple words.

_So? Get stronger._

So he did.

And, gradually, Allen found that his universe, which had once been structured with Lavi firmly at the center, was slowly realigning with Kanda—

(Gruff, rough Kanda with too many prickles and too few graces)

—as its new heart.

And Allen was slowly, slowly beginning to feel almost…

 _Happy_.

* * *


	4. Fourth Stage: Conjunction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _  
>  **A/N:**   
>  _   
>  _Sorry for the long wait between updates, and for such a short chapter now that it's finally up, but I couldn't really think of anything else I wanted to put into this section. Anyway, I got what I wanted into it, so I'm content._

**Stages of Transformation**

**Fourth Stage:**

_  
**Conjunction**  
_

_The recombination of the saved elements from Separation into a new substance; also the empowerment of our true selves, and the union of both the light and dark sides of our personalities into a new belief system or a higher, more grounded state of consciousness._

.

The winter, when it came, was slow and mild, as it usually was so close to the sea. There was no snow, only days of calm, misty rain that were more soothing than depressing. Allen spent most of his time in Lenalee's flower shop, helping with customers or playing the piano, or—once he was promoted to crutches—at Kanda's dojo. Kanda was still as brusque as ever, and often downright rude, but he had yet to send Allen away, no matter how late Allen showed up at the martial arts studio. They had an easy relationship, balanced between hidden fondness, casual insults, and physical violence.

A month and a bit after their first meeting, just as the weather began to turn grey and heavy clouds began to ease the heat of summer, Lenalee and Komui left for China to visit what family they had left, leaving a skeleton staff to work the shops and Allen to care for the house. Lenalee had been against going, terrified that something would happen without anyone to help Allen with the stairs, but he cheerfully waved her off with assurances that he would call Miranda and Marie if he needed help. And so they left, and Allen was alone again.

* * *

Once again, nothing was changing. Each day passed exactly as the one before it had, a steady procession of seconds, minutes, and hours that seemed to blend and run until Allen couldn't tell them apart. Time, again, did not change, and even the tortuous daily training began to feel average and predictable. Allen hated it, but could not bear to bring himself to force a change on a world that was finally settling around him. Without Lenalee and Komui to distract him from the dark thoughts that plagued the silence— _maybe I should have just stayed asleep what good does my being awake do why am I here why didn't I die in the accident WHY DID LAVI LEAVE ME WHAT DID I DO WRONG_ —Allen lost what appetite he had regained, and spent even more time at his piano—not playing, not always, but simply touching the ivory keys or the smooth, dark wood—or in mindless motion with Kanda.

Kanda was, for a second time, one of the only reasons that Allen—though he was tempted, sorely—did not slip back into his former half-dream state. He couldn't, not when Kanda was always so grounding, forcibly dragging Allen out of whatever stupor he managed to put himself into. The older man was blunt, and rude, and surly, but he was never _nice_. Nice would have allowed Allen to retreat from reality again. But Kanda never gave him that option.

And, at the same, easy pace as the days slipping by, something inside Allen began to shift.

It started slowly. One day, when Allen finished his workout early, and Kanda had no afternoon classes, they had lunch together in a small restaurant that served simple, comforting food, and learned that they both enjoyed cooking and buckwheat soba. Kanda was never one for small talk, but even he could not resist when Allen _tried_ to be charming.

The next day, he brusquely offered to take Allen to dinner at a Japanese restaurant that served, in his words, acceptable" soba, and Allen—because he knew just how courteous Kanda was being when he made that offer, and was secretly touched by it—agreed easily. He didn't mind at all, really. Kanda was a moody bastard and had a chip on his shoulder the size of Greenland, but he did not pry and he did not worry.

Very soon, Allen was saying yes to dinner every night that Kanda did not have classes.

It was wonderful, he reflected, to _not be_ cared about.

Gradually, they began to spend more and more time in each other's company. Occasional dinners became regular lunches, to which were soon added walks in the park, or trips to the bookstore, or visits to the beach—by mutual, unspoken agreement, the latter were kept far from any of the places that Lavi and Tyki might frequent. Even when Kanda and Allen just stayed at the dojo, they were never far apart. Kanda would use Allen in his class demonstrations, since the younger man—even with his weak legs—could keep up well, and emphasized Kanda's often-made point that size was not important in martial arts. Children also adored Allen, so he often assisted with the younger groups. The assistant instructors, Tokusa and Fo, also liked him, and often badgered Kanda—as much as anyone could ever badger Kanda, and still keep their limbs intact—about hiring him as a third instructor. Kanda's usual response of, " _Tch,_ " was very nearly civil, which they took to mean he was considering it, even though he never mentioned it explicitly.

Allen and Kanda still fought, of course, because theirs was a friendship that was more akin to rivalry than amity. But their rivalry was similar to the bickering of longtime companions, in that no matter how harsh the words became, there was always the knowledge present that they were not meant to hurt, only aggravate and provoke. As both Kanda and Allen had rather low boiling points, the explosions were always entertaining to witness, and Fo and Tokusa both had fun adding to the disagreements, calling out needling little comments about whose fuse was shorter or who would look better bald—they had learned quickly what was the best way to rile both men, and used the knowledge to great amusement whenever the opportunity arose.

But throughout the arguments, spats, lunches, dinners, and rainy days, Kanda and Allen remained close, and simply got closer, as though every squabble they had merely deepened the ties that were steadily growing between them.

* * *

It was nearly the end of winter by the time the change that had been building for months finally reached its peak. Allen and Kanda had moved from restaurants to home cooking, and would take turns preparing meals in Kanda's fanatically neat apartment, where nothing dared accumulate dust for fear of the owner's wrath. Lenalee and Komui were due back soon, and Allen could not decide whether he was happy that the silence would soon be filled, or regretful that his peace would once again be broken. He had not yet decided when Kanda placed two bowls of soba on the table in front of him, then sat down and took one for himself. Allen took the other with a nod of thanks, then picked up his chopsticks.

They ate for a while in silence, but then Kanda suddenly set his bowl down with a sharp thunk. Allen started, nearly spilling his meal, and looked up curiously.

"Is something wrong?" he asked after a moment, when Kanda neither moved nor spoke.

Kanda took a slow breath, then let it out on a sigh. "Lenalee and Komui are coming back soon, right?"

Still confused as to why he was asking, Allen nodded.

"And you'll be starting at the university again in the spring, right?"

Another nod, and Allen couldn't, for the life of him, figure out why Kanda wanted to know.

Taking another carefully measured breath, Kanda fixed his eyes on a painting of delicate maple leaves that hung over Allen's left shoulder. "It's only a ten minute walk to the university from here."

"Yes?" Allen encouraged warily, unsure of where this was heading, and half-suspicious that Kanda would derail this train of thought before it got somewhere.

Kanda took a third breath, then dropped his lapis gaze to hold Allen's grey one. "Would you like to move in with me?"

Allen blinked. Even for Kanda, that was quite a straight shot.

With a slight roll of his eyes, Kanda went back to his soba. "Don't hurt yourself thinking so hard, moyashi. I'm just offering because I have the space, and Lenalee is graduating this year. The old geezer—" Kanda's adoptive father, he-whose-kindness-and-love-for-his-sons-must-never-be-mentioned-on-pain-of-dismemberment "—already wasted his money on this place, and I have too many rooms to keep clean, so you might as well."

They were rough words, unembellished and bordering on terse, but as they were spoken, Allen could feel the ice that had encased his world for so long begin to melt. Warmth washed over him, like the heat of a fire at the end of a cold night, or warm breath against frozen skin, and he finally recognized the feeling that had been building ever since he opened his eyes and saw Kanda leaning over him. It was not a soft, sweet feeling like he had experienced before. Rather, it was like Kanda—sharp, brusque, and somewhat abrasive. It was the silken weight of jet hair, the heavy intensity of cobalt eyes, and the scowling seriousness that hid much more than a testy, violent samurai-throwback. Allen knew it, felt the wonder of realization within him, and closed his lips around the words as they attempted to find freedom in the air.

He hesitated just once more, then pointed out carefully, "But, Kanda, I'm a Concert Piano major. I have to practice, all the time. It'll wreck your meditation."

Kanda scowled and leveled his chopsticks threateningly. "Do I look like I care about your fucking piano?" he growled, and Allen had to admit that he didn't—he looked more like he cared about impaling someone with his eating utensils. "I said I have rooms. Hell, put it in the kitchen, for all I care."

And like that, the subject of moving was settled. Allen went back to Lenalee's the next day to pack his things.

* * *

_Hey, Neah._

_I don't know what I'm doing, talking to a piano. Maybe I'm finally losing it. But…it's been the only constant thing in my life, and when I talk to it, I feel like I'm talking to_  
 _  
 **you**  
_  
 **,**  
 _Neah. You were always my favorite guardian—well, you and Mana both. So when I need someone to listen to me, isn't it natural that I go to the one thing that reminds me of you?_

_And talk to a piano. I still can't get around that fact._

_But…_

_I think I did something stupid, Neah._

_I really didn't mean to, I swear._

_I think…_

_I think I'm halfway in love with Kanda._

_It's not right, is it? I mean, I always told Lavi that I would love him forever, no matter what happened to us. No matter what we went through. Even if he was dead, or I was dead, or the whole world died around us. Even then, I would still love him._

_Of course, he swore that he would love me, too, the same way, and look where we are now._

_And do I even love him anymore? I'll always be_  
 _  
 **fond**  
_  
 _of him, of course—he was four years of my life, and my entire world—but…I built my whole life around him, and he knew that, and he left me anyway. He hasn't even come to see me_  
 _  
 **once**  
_  
 _since that very first day._

_I know what you would say, Neah. Don't blame him, he did what he had to do to survive. You always were the kindest person in the world. And I_  
 _  
 **don't**  
_  
 _blame him, not really. Maybe I would have done the same thing, if he had been in the accident. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about._

_Not the past, but the future._

_Not Lavi, but Kanda._

_Is it all right to…like him? And if it is, is it all right to live with him even if I don't tell him? Because I_  
 _  
 **can't**  
_  
 _tell him, not if I want to keep everything the way it is._

_I suppose that's part of the problem, though. I_  
 _  
 **don't**  
_  
 _want to keep things the same anymore. I want to_  
 _  
 **change**  
_  
 _. And I think…that maybe…_

_Just maybe…_

_Kanda can help me to do that._

* * *

Just as spring began to creep around the corner again, Allen moved in with Kanda. They unpacked his few boxes in a new room, helped Marie, Komui, Krory, and Cross maneuver the awkward weight of the piano into the corner of the living room, and settled into life together as easily as walking across a familiar room in the dark. There were a few bumps, a little bit of uncertainty, and several fits of swearing, but—for the most part—living together came as simply as their training, or Allen's new part-time job at the dojo. There were no puzzle pieces sliding into place, as there had been with Lavi, but to Allen, their connection was all the stronger for having endured—and outlasted—the rough patches.

And so, as the days grew longer and warmer, and their lives settled into a comfortable routine, Allen and Kanda relaxed into a shared existence, and Allen found that—for the first time since he had woken up on a calm spring day almost exactly one year ago—a little seed of hope had take root in his heart.


	5. Fifth Stage: Fermentation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _  
>  **A/N:**   
>  _   
>  _Again there was a really long wait, and again I am down on my knees apologizing for it, but this time I have a good reason, I swear! You know, I managed to live for 18 years on a farm with 30 horses, and never broke my left (my dominant hand) wrist. But a week ago, in my infinite gracefulness, I managed to trip over my own feet and fall down four flights of stairs. How, you ask? Simple. It's because I'm claustrophobic._

**Stages of Transformation**

**Fifth Stage:**

_  
**Fermentation**  
_

_A two-stepped process that begins with the Putrefaction of the hermaphroditic "child" from the Conjunction resulting in its death and resurrection to a new level of being. New life is introduced to the product of Conjunction to strengthen it and insure its survival. Starts with the living inspiration from something beyond oneself that reanimates, energizes, and enlightens. Out of the blackness of Putrefaction comes the yellow Ferment, which appears like gold flowing out of the formerly dark Soul._

.

Seconds and minutes and hours and days. Days and weeks and months and seasons.

Life went on.

For the first time since Allen had woken up, he was glad of the passing time. His days with Kanda were not slow, or easy, or anything else they had been before he moved in with the other man. They were bright, and shining, and heated, and aggravating, and gave him everything that his life had been lacking for so long. They ate together, talked together, sparred together, watched movies together. Sometimes, when they were both calm and relaxed, and Kanda settled cross-legged on the soft carpet, Allen would play the piano for the two of them.

And, as spring came and the misty days faded and the sun strengthened, he began to play the songs he thought had stolen from him in the accident—songs of the growing grass, and the waves at dawn, and the laughter of children at the dojo. Songs of wind, and the peace of a quiet home, and the focused swiftness of Kanda's movements as he practiced. Kanda would listen to those songs as he meditated, eyes closed and breathing even. They would stay up late on such nights, opening themselves up to the teasing of Tokusa and Fo when they dragged themselves into the dojo the next morning.

But that was all right, because those nights were peace and comfort, filled with music that Allen had thought was lost to him forever. Kanda did not seem to mind either, despite his usual surliness, and while he said nothing about Allen's music, he would never leave the room once Allen started playing. They were content together, in a simple way that Allen had never been with anyone else. Not even Lavi.

Slowly, slowly, Allen felt his heart beginning to bloom.

* * *

Kanda wasn't quite certain how this had happened. He would never have said it, but he was not immune to the slight shift in feeling and connection, the gradual flow of thoughts and emotions that left him not unbalanced, but tranquil. Allen had slipped into his life with an ease he had never expected, after his mad, impulsive invitation. And watching the moyashi change from the quiet, withdrawn victim of an accident to his former feisty, funny, beautiful self was strangely satisfying, especially since he knew it was partly his handiwork.

He had never really interacted with Allen before their meeting in the park. In fact, before that, he could have counted on one hand the number of times they had even seen each other—even including the times Lenalee had brought him to the hospital with her. And yet, that first day, he had felt a strange urge to speak, to disturb the white-haired man in the quiet clearing, when usually he would be the last to interrupt someone's peace. And then the stranger had remembered the one detail of Kanda's life that was most important to Kanda—his sword. Mugen. Allen had remembered it, even though they had never spoken more than a handful of words to each other. It left Kanda feeling absurdly… _protective_ of this frail, fragile creature who looked so lost when he spoke of his own weakness.

And, because Kanda knew what it was to be strong, and not-strong, he had helped. For his own gratification, if nothing else. It was different from coaching the others at the dojo, the paying students with varying degrees of enthusiasm, all of whom drove him a hair's breadth from homicide. Allen had a _reason_ , a _drive_ , which made it impossible _not_ to help him.

And, as the days progressed, it went beyond a desire help and became _caring_. Kanda _cared_ for Allen, in a way he never had for anyone before. He could never have said it, so instead he showed it with simple things, things that he thought would go unnoticed when he did them—like moving Allen's shoes a little closer to the bench by their door, so that he could sit down while putting them on. Or folding Allen's laundry before he put it in the younger man's room, so that he wouldn't have to stand as long to put it away. Or airing out his blankets whenever the sun was out long enough to permit it. Or a hundred other simple things that would not make Allen feel weak, or take very much time for Kanda to perform, and that would most often go unnoticed. Kanda preferred it that way. He was not used to caring, in the same way that Allen was not used to living without his red-haired shadow. Not-caring had been a part of his life for so long that the change was almost frightening, for all that Kanda was never scared of anything.

But that gentleness became far more evident—and far more necessary—one overcast day several weeks into spring.

Allen had gone to the hospital for a checkup, refusing all offers of a ride from Lenalee, Komui, and—gruffly—Kanda. He insisted that he was fine taking the bus, but—though he never would have admitted it aloud—Kanda was worried. The appointment should have ended several hours ago, but Allen was still nowhere to be seen. Kanda had already closed the dojo after the last class, and now paced in front of the bus stop on the corner, feeling a little bit twitchier with every passing moment. Three busses had arrived and gone, but there was no sign of the moyashi.

A sudden twinge of feeling made pause in mid-stride, his eyes flickering towards his car, then jumping in the direction of the city park. He frowned.

Could he have…?

Yes, Kanda decided, reflecting on the moyashi's previous foolishness. He could have.

With a low growl, he stalked back to his car, threw himself in, and jammed his key into the ignition, grumbling under his breath all the while. The moyashi was _not_ going to go back into that stupid daze, not after all this time. There was no reason why it had to be _Kanda_ who dragged him out of his slump, but…there was no reason why it _shouldn't_ be him, either. After all, he was the one who had broken Allen out of the first stupor.

Within minutes, Kanda was pulling over beside the park and leaping out, leaving the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked as he strode towards the stand of trees that crowned the hilltop. A pair of crutches had been abandoned beside the path in a haphazard pile. A few steps beyond, a crumpled piece of paper lay beside a discarded coat that Kanda recognized as Allen's. He stopped with a sigh, and removed the crutches from the path of a dangerously unobservant jogger, the collected the coat and paper. He smoothed out the latter, took one look at the obscure medical terms and professional jargon, and crumpled it again with a scoffing, " _Tch_." whatever was on that sheet was important, he knew, but he decided to ask Allen rather than try to decipher the meaning on his own. There was also, in the back of his mind, a nagging feeling that Allen needed him _now_.

Once, Kanda might have hesitated. Once, he might have left Allen to grieve alone, and gone back to his house, where he would have ignored the problem until Allen mentioned it offhand, and he could safely broach the topic. But that was before. Before Allen had opened his eyes. Before Allen had remembered Mugen. Before Allen had _smiled_ at him. Before Allen had moved into his house and life and—just maybe—his heart. Before, before, before. Allen, Allen, Allen. Before Allen. That was what everything revolved around. Taking a deep breath, Kanda stepped past the first ring of trunks and pushed the budding branches out of the way.

Allen lay on his back in the wet grass, blank eyes staring up at the overcast sky. It reminded Kanda of their first meeting here, and even now, he felt the same strange, driving urge to go over and shake the younger man out of his daze. He also saw no reason why he should not, so he strode into the clearing and to Allen's side, dropping to the ground next to him with a soft huff and squishing slightly in the mud from the last rain.

Silence stretched between them for a long while—minutes or hours, Kanda wasn't certain—and then Allen reached over and took the crumpled paper from his loose grip.

"They took x-rays today," he said quietly. "Of my spine. It was damaged by the…the accident." Silver-mist eyes blinked quickly, banishing the wet shine. "They said…it's as healed as it can ever be. My legs won't get any better after this. Some of the damage is…permanent."

Some of the words that Kanda had glimpsed on the paper—spinal fracture, irreparable, nerve damage—clicked together into a single image, and he frowned, looking over at the smaller man.

"The crutches?" he asked.

Allen nodded, closing his eyes. "My legs will always be a little unsteady, so they want me t keep using them. For the rest of my life." His voice didn't quite break, didn't quite waver, but it trembled all the same, and was all but inaudible. "I can't stand it, Kanda. I can't stand being weak forever."

Kanda sighed softly and took the paper back, but, on a whim, left his fingers tangled with Allen's. "Are you weak?" he asked bluntly. "Do you give in whenever things are hard? Do you crumble whenever something gets in your way? Can you beat a man twice your size, hand-to-hand?" He paused for a moment, waiting for a negative. When it didn't come, he raised an eyebrow and glanced over at Allen. "You can. I've seen you do it. So you're not weak." He rose to his feet and offered a hand to help Allen up.

Allen looked at the hand for a long moment, then smiled softly and took it, so that Kanda held both of his, and allowed the older man to pull him to his feet. His eyes had brightened to silver-gilt, and the lines in his face had smoothed away, like sand on the shoreline wiped clean again by the retreating tide. He looked at Kanda, and while there was still a flicker of melancholic weariness in his expression, his gaze was warm and grateful.

"Thank you, Kanda," he whispered—and, to Kanda's shock, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Kanda's waist, then buried his face in the elder's shoulder, his body beginning to tremble ever so slightly. Kanda felt Allen's warmth, and how something hot and wet dampened his shirt, and tipped his own head back to stare up at the sky, bringing his arms up to wrap around Allen's deceptively slim, small body. Allen felt that, felt the silent, brusque support that radiated from Kanda's every motion, and tightened his grip. Neither one could bear to let the other go, and in that moment, neither needed words to show it.

Standing there, hidden from the world, Allen cried for the first time in over a year as the tentative spring sun broke through the clouds.

Through the storm of tears, when old wounds were finally scabbed over and lingering doubts finally wiped away, Kanda held him, and did not move.

* * *

The intimidatingly thick, leather-bound dictionary Kanda kept on the shelf defined love as "a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person." Perhaps that wasn't a great definition. Perhaps it wasn't even a _good_ one. But Allen didn't know how _anyone_ could have done this feeling justice with mere words.

He still found it somewhat mind-boggling that he felt this for _Kanda_ , of all people.

When he had fallen in love with Lavi, it had been an instant thing. _Fallen_ was indeed an apt word. Within three days, they had slept together, moved in together, and planned to spend the rest of their lives together. But with Kanda—in love, as in everything else—it was different. After that day in the park, life did not instantly shift, and they did not instantly fall into bed together, professing their undying devotion. Instead, as gradually as the approaching summer making its way into the world, they began to tighten their orbits around each other, just a little bit.

Lenalee was the first of their friends to realize. She went out with them to dinner one night, watched Kanda pull out a chair for Allen, and knew. After that, Miranda—who was surprisingly perceptive, as long as she was not personally involved, noticed Allen tuck a lock of hair behind Kanda's ear—and, more surprising yet, Kanda did not immediately go for Mugen. Instead, he looked over at Allen, saw the gentle smile Allen gave him, and offered the slightest smile in return. With that, Miranda knew, and she told Marie. Marie just smiled, even as Komui, who was with him at the time, broke down in tears at the thought of his "little brothers" finally becoming adults—ignoring, completely, that this was hardly a first relationship for either Kanda or Allen. Krory and Cross were both left in the dark until their partners—Eliade and Cloud, respectively—pointed out the fact that the two men were far too close for mere friendship. Krory accepted the relationship with a minimum of fuss, while Cloud had to physically restrain Cross from going and confronting Kanda about the proper way to treat Cross's ward.

Allen and Kanda were, thankfully, spared the confrontation, and instead focused on each other as summer began to creep up on them. It was becoming obvious, even to those that did not know them, that their worlds were narrowing to include only each other. Allen had recovered, for the most part, from his bout of depression following the doctor's pronouncement, and began to spend every moment that he could at Kanda's side. Kanda, for his part, was secretly glad of this. Once, he had thought that a clingy lover was a fate worse than death, but with Allen, it was a comforting feeling that left him warm inside. He knew quite well that he was not an easy person to be around. He had a temper, and a sharp tongue, and no social skills. That Allen _wanted_ to stay by his side was an incredible thought, one that he did not think he would give up for anything.

There were many, many reasons why a relationship such as theirs should not have worked. They were so different that they were all but opposite, and both had tempers reminiscent of a tiger woken suddenly. Neither could function in the morning, but Allen liked coffee while Kanda drank only tea. Kanda was brusque. Allen was kind. Kanda liked to sleep through the night, while Allen would often wake up at an ungodly hour and spend the rest of the night playing the piano. Allen bottled things up; Kanda took them out on the nearest innocent victim. They both fought, and they both went through periods of the silent treatment—giving it and receiving it—and they often couldn't agree even on simple things.

But—despite all of that—after their first kiss, Allen knew he could never give up what they had.

It was a day like any other, for all that they had been building to this for a long while. They had finished at the dojo, bought what groceries they needed, and gone home, and were putting the food away in their neat kitchen. Allen had just picked up a can of tomatoes and turned to put it in the cupboard as Kanda picked up a bag of rice. They all but collided in the small space, and only Kanda's hand on his shoulder stopped Allen from overbalancing completely. Once he was steady, though, Kanda did not release him. Instead, he dropped the rice, leaned forward, caught Allen's chin in one hand, and kissed him gently, sweetly, kindly.

But this was Kanda, and Allen did not want gentle or sweet or kind. So when he was released, he tossed the can of tomatoes carelessly aside, wrapped one hand in Kanda's ebony hair and pulled him back down, this time initiating a kiss that simmered with the tension that had been building between them for weeks. This kiss was hot, searing, melting, fierce, and a thousand other words that Allen's sensation-dazed brain could not grasp. Kanda did not appear to have much interest in speaking, either, as he wrapped his arms around Allen and pulled the smaller man close, pressing their bodies together. One hand rose to tangle in stark-white hair, pulling Allen's head back slightly to change the angle of their kiss as he devoured him from the mouth down, using tongue and teeth the lips to stoke the fire that built with each touch. Allen, realizing that exploration would be allowed, slid his hands under Kanda's loose black button-up, smoothing his fingers over satiny skin and firm muscles to Kanda's growl of appreciation. By the time they broke apart, several breathless minutes later, both were flushed and breathing hard, but strangely relaxed as the tension between them dissipated.

Boneless and oddly satisfied—for it had only been a kiss, albeit the best kiss of his life—Allen leaned into Kanda, allowing the taller man to hold him up. He looked up and offered Kanda a breathless smile. "So what would you do if I picked up the milk?"

Kanda didn't quite roll his eyes, but it was a near thing. "Baka moyashi," he murmured, then dipped his head for another quick kiss before he slipped past Allen to put the rice away.

* * *

After that, there were many more kisses—quick and secret in the dojo's changing room, slow and languid in their living room, peaceful and lazy in the small grove in the park. They were hidden, almost jealously, as though sharing the sight of them would make them somehow less personal, less treasured. Neither Kanda nor Allen wanted to share what they had with the rest of their friends quite yet.

But the secret would not stay secret forever. From one to another, the knowledge moved, and at long last passed to Lavi. Lavi did not know how to feel, at first, for though he was happy that Allen had found someone else, there was a small, greedy part of him that was still in love with Allen, and wanted Allen to still be in love with him. He hesitated for a few days, longer than he had thought he would, going to school and preparing to graduate, cleaning his house, and taking long walks on the beach.

But, finally, he could not stand _not knowing_ any more, and drove—his heart pounding with something akin to fear, or longing, or perhaps neither of those—the several miles to Kanda's dojo, arriving just as the last class was leaving. For a long moment, Lavi hesitated outside the door, staring in, to where Allen sat in a chair by the far wall. A group of children was gathered around him, all seemingly fighting for his attention, and Allen was laughing at them, his grey eyes as warm as the sun. Lavi couldn't move, couldn't take his eyes off the sight, and for an endless instant, the entire world was frozen.

And then a hard hand landed on Lavi's shoulder and yanked him out of the doorway, pulling him out of sight of the training room. Lavi blinked in surprise, and then looked up at Kanda's scowling face. Usually, he wouldn't think too much, since a scowl was Kanda's default expression, but this one was sharp and angry and just a little bit worried, though the last emotion was all but impossible to see. It gave Lavi pause, and for the first time, a flicker of doubt rushed over him. What did he want to do here? Why had he come?

Kanda seemed to be thinking along the same lines as he folded his arms across his chest, staring at the redhead. "What do you want?" he demanded sharply, looking at the redhead as though Lavi were a particularly horrible and disgusting species of fungus.

Lavi hesitated, fumbled for words, and finally sighed, giving up to the emotions that whirled through him like a cyclone. "I just…want to make sure he's happy."

"I am."

The unexpected voice made both Lavi and Kanda turn to look at the doorway, where Allen leaned against the jamb, one hand on the frame to stay upright. Without looking away from either of the men, he raised his voice slightly and called, "Tokusa, do you think you can grab my crutches from the changing room? I don't think my legs will make it that far."

Lavi flinched slightly at the word "crutches."

"Sure, Allen," Tokusa agreed cheerfully, even though he—like Kanda—knew that Allen was far from exhausted, and normally wouldn't have asked unless he couldn't even stand. "Just one sec." He disappeared into the back.

Allen turned his attention back to Lavi, and gave him a small smile. It was sad, heartbreaking, but it didn't waver. "I know why you came, Lavi. But the answer is the same as the one you gave me. I'm sorry. I can't be with you anymore. I still care for you and I always will, at least a little, but I'm in love with Kanda, and I have been since last year."

The words were simple, because the feeling behind them was simple. Allen knew that Kanda already knew how he felt, in the same way that he knew how Kanda felt. It was the little things, the soft touches, the gentleness that gave it away. They didn't really need to speak the words on top of that.

Kanda's stiffness seemed to ease slightly, and a soft breath left him, too soft to have been called a sigh of relief, but a touch heavier than a simple exhalation. "Baka moyashi, if you're tired, go sit down," he ordered. It was about as far as one could get from an acceptance of confession, but then, Kanda had accepted it the day he let Allen cling to him in the park and cry—almost, if he thought back, since he offered to let Allen live with him. Not that he would ever say it so explicitly, of course.

Allen tried to hide his amusement at Kanda's gruff embarrassment, knowing that Kanda wouldn't appreciate it—much the same way a tiger wouldn't appreciate having its tail pulled on, and probably with a very similar result. "Oh?" He didn't trust himself to say more than that.

At that moment, Tokusa appeared at Allen's side with the crutches, his sharp eyes taking in the tension between the three—and then completely ignoring it. He grinned at the younger man. "Here you go, Allen! That cute little blond wants your number, by the way."

Allowing himself to be dragged back inside, Allen blinked. "Ah…Tokusa, she's nine."

"Yeah, but her mother's gorgeous," Tokusa pointed out cheerfully. "Come on, let's go finish setting up for tomorrow. Then you can go home with your boy-toy."

Allen shook his head, but let the taller man lead him away. Over his shoulder, he smiled at Lavi and said gently, "Sorry, but I really am happy."

Kanda and Lavi both watched him go, and then Kanda really did sigh, relaxing enough to lean against the wall. "He's not really fine," he said darkly. "You're an idiot if you thought he would be. But he's doing better now, and he won't break down just from this."

Lavi looked at Kanda, then at Allen, and allowed a small smile to overtake his face. "Yeah. I think I see that."

Kanda stared at him for a moment more, and then nodded once. "Good. Now get out. I have to lock up."

And while it was not exactly an easy peace between them, it was at least a truce, and Lavi could live with that. Even if Allen no longer needed him, and even if Allen hated him for intruding on that happiness, he finally had the answer he had been looking for.

Allen had, after a year, finally moved on.

* * *

"You're sure you're all right?"

Allen gave Kanda an amused glance, then paused in buckling his seatbelt to lean over and kiss him on the cheek. "Yes, Kanda, I'm fine. Seeing Lavi again after all this time…it made me think how lucky I was to have you there for me, when he wasn't. I still care for him, and I don't think that will ever change, but I think what we have now is more important. Lavi understands, too. Things can never go back t the way they were, but we're all happier like this. Why should we try to change anything?"

And that, Kanda supposed, was that. He smiled slightly, turning in his seat and bringing Allen closer for a sharp kiss that burned away any doubts that might have remained.

"Good, because I don't share."

"I love you, too, Kanda," Allen whispered, leaning in again, and then his smiling eyes were Kanda's whole world.


	6. Sixth Stage: Distillation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _  
>  **A/N:**   
>  _   
>  _My wrist is still broken, but this story is almost done! Only an epilogue left to go! I feel kind of bad that Lavi is still the bad guy, so I might try to redeem him a little. But only a little. I just want to make this whole story feel realistic. Real life doesn't have such sharply defined bad guys._

**Stages of Transformation**

**Sixth Stage:**

_  
**Distillation**   
_

_The boiling and condensation of the fermented solution to increase its purity; the agitation and sublimation of psychic forces to ensure that no impurities are incorporated into the next and final stage. Also the purification of the unborn Self—all that one truly is and can be._

.

It had been forty-nine months since the accident. Eleven months since Allen had woken up for the first time. Seven months since he met Kanda. One month since they had officially gotten together. And all of six long hours since Kanda had last seen the moyashi. It was only the first day of the summer term, but Kanda was already in a foul mood, and wondering how he was going to survive the rest of the school year.

(Tokusa and Fo were more concerned with how everyone _else_ was going to survive.)

Still, Kanda was happy for Allen. He had finally managed to reclaim his scholarships and gain a few new ones, and immediately re-enrolled to continue his studies. Kanda was just thankful that Allen, as a junior, didn't have to take general classes, and could focus on his major. It meant fewer classes, so Allen could spend longer at the dojo every day. It wasn't that Kanda was helpless without Allen, or even uncertain, but having Allen around made everything seem smoother, easier. Having him suddenly pulled away, after being so close for so long, left Kanda moody and out of sorts. He didn't _need_ Allen, but he wanted the softness that Allen brought—not weakness, never weakness, because Kanda could not even distantly connect the term with the fierce, quicksilver creature who so enthralled him—and the calmness that surrounded Allen like an aura of peace. It was a comfort he wasn't used to, and a luxury he was quickly becoming addicted to.

And Allen was, if anything, worsening his craving. With Kanda's acceptance of his confession, he had begun to smile even more, and laugh even more, and hum under his breath, and play sweeter, brighter tunes whenever he sat down at the piano. Kanda said nothing, but he loved those songs with a fierceness that surprised even him. Maybe it was the happiness that Allen showed when playing such music. Maybe it was the fact that Allen had only started to play them after Kanda entered his life. Maybe—and most likely—it was because Allen poured every ounce of his feeling, his passion, into those melodies, and each one felt like falling in love all over again.

Allen said nothing, either, but Kanda had also become milder in the last month. He smiled every day, where before Allen had felt lucky to receive one a week. He no longer kept one hand on Mugen when someone spoke to him, even if his hands did flex as though in thought of strangulation. But he no longer drew the katana whenever his temper was piqued, much to the relief of his students and the observers in the dojo. And, though he thought Allen didn't notice—though Allen did, and had always noticed—he continued to make those countless small gestures that nevertheless made Allen's life infinitely easier to manage. Sometimes—rarely, but still once in a while—Kanda would make such gestures overt, such as sweeping Allen off his feet and carrying him up the stairs to their apartment.

(After this, of course, he complained about Allen's weight, and then subsided into embarrassed reticence, only breaking it with an occasional scoffing, " _Tch_ ," when he was directly addressed.)

But, together, Allen felt that they were both far, far happier than they had ever been apart. Kanda thought so, too, though he did not say it as explicitly as Allen did. But then, he did not need to. Allen was gentle where he was harsh, bright where he was dark, and unrestrained where he was taciturn. They needed each other—one was too kind, and the other too cold.

Only together did they make a full person.

* * *

If he now happened to meet his self from those first months after waking up, or even his self from before the accident, Allen thought that his old selves would no longer recognize him, nor he them. He had changed so much, reinvented whole pieces of himself and started in an entirely new direction with his life. Really, who would have thought that the small, gentle Piano major had a job at a dojo renowned for the sensei's brutality—though, as Tokusa often pointed out, Kanda was the sole reason for that reputation and it had absolutely no bearing on the rest of them—and a boyfriend whose temper rivaled that of a cobra with its tail trodden on?

Especially the boyfriend.

Kanda was a good partner, Allen decided upon reflection, but he was still _Kanda_. He would not change his nature, not even in the grip of that horrible manipulator called love, and Allen just loved him all the more for it. Lenalee had once remarked that it was like a fairy tale, where the princess—not that Allen accepted being called a princess, mind you—kissed the prince to break the spell and they fell in love, only to find that the prince's curse—Kanda's temperament, in this case, Lenalee confided to Allen in a whisper—was still going strong, and the prince not only accepted it, but relished it. And now, with a rather bloody happily ever after looming in the distance, the princess just rolled her eyes, armed herself with a good supply of patience, a sword with which to whack her errant hero whenever he got out of hand, and all the love she felt for him, and soldiered on.

Not, of course, that Kanda was a prince or Allen a princess, Lenalee had assured her rather horrified audience. But Allen thought it was, as a metaphor, suitable enough.

Allen had started at the university again, taking classes and working towards his major. Kanda still disliked having to be parted, but he accepted it with his usual bad grace, for which Allen was thankful. Fo and Tokusa put up with it as best they could, but more and more often they ended up chasing Kanda out of the dojo as soon as possible for him to go and pick up Allen. Consequently, he had begun doing that more and more, and begun arriving earlier and earlier—like now, where class was still in session, and he was relegated to leaning against the back wall of the music room, scowl growing deeper every time Timothy—the professor's ward, who everyone knew had a crush Allen—leaned over the white-haired pianist's shoulder to turn the page for him. Allen ignored him for the most part, concentrating on his playing, but every few minutes he would look up and smile gently, and Kanda would stop shifting so impatiently and give him a small smile in return.

If this warm feeling in his chest was love, Kanda reflected as the piano reached it crescendo, perhaps love wasn't so bad.

The class ended as he pondered, and the other students drifted out of the room in intermittent swarms, talking and laughing and trying their best not to catch the eye of the glowering man at the back of the room. After the first few teasing remarks they had directed at Allen, they had quickly learned that not only did Kanda have a very short fuse, the explosions promised to be bloody in a way no horror movie could. The room quickly emptied, until only Kanda, Allen, and the professor were left, the latter talking animatedly with Allen. Kanda caught the words "concert" and "original pieces" and could guess what was going on. However, he stayed where he was, knowing Allen would want to reveal the news himself.

And, sure enough, a moment later Allen was flying across the room as fast as his legs—still slightly unsteady, though much stronger than the doctor had ever expected because of his constant training—could carry him, and threw himself into Kanda's arms, laughing. Kanda caught him, smiling as only Allen could make him, and pulled the smaller man close, giving him a gentle kiss. Allen, as he so often did, shook off the gentleness and replaced it with hunger, pulling Kanda down into a kiss that—though he would never admit it aloud—made his toes curl as the smaller body seemed to _blossom_ against him. For a long moment, they remained locked together, and Kanda had to wonder if they might ever just _stay_ like this, and not break apart.

He wouldn't complain.

But all too soon, Allen released him and leaned back, smiling up into his eyes as no one had ever done, and with a light in his face that no one else had, and Kanda found that he could hardly breath for happiness. _Oh, there's the proof_ , something whispered inside of him, and though it tried to sound bitter, it simply came off as breathless. _You have completely, utterly, irrevocably fallen for this man_.

_You're in love, Yu._

_Wholly, vastly, blissfully in love._

_And you wouldn't have it any other way, would you?_

Then Allen moved, pressing another quick kiss to Kanda's lips, and said breathlessly, "They've asked me to give a concert, Kanda! With my own music! At the city concert hall!" He kissed Kanda again, trembling with excitement, and Kanda decided that he most definitely liked this form of exuberance. "Even the mayor's going to be there! If it turns out well, they might let me play a whole series!"

Kanda smiled at him, because he couldn't help it, and Allen looked more beautiful than ever right now, even in ratty old jeans with holes in the knees and a t-shirt that Kanda could have sworn was his. "Good. What are you going to play?"

Allen grinned at him, then turned away without answering, all but dancing back across the room to pick up his crutches from beside the piano. Professor Link, a strange man who Kanda had never really gotten used to, smiled at his excitement and patted his shoulder, then grabbed his ward by the scruff of the neck and pulled him out of the room. Kanda watched Allen lean down and kiss the piano keys, then shook his head and crossed to him, hooking an arm around his waist and pulling him upright, taking the crutches from his grip and shouldering them.

"Come on," he ordered. "I want to leave before you start kissing innocent passersby. Let's go."

Allen was too happy to take his comment to heart, though he did let Kanda hold him up as they left the building and headed for the parking lot. "I can't wait! Will you come, Kanda? I want the music to be a surprise for you."

Again, Kanda could hardly stop himself from rolling his eyes. "Yes, moyashi, I'll come. We can ask Tokusa and Fo, too. They'd probably like a night off of work." He glanced over, noticed that Allen was staring at him wide-eyed, and got defensive. "What, baka moyashi?"

Allen slowly shook his head, the smile spreading back across his face. "Kanda, you've _never_ given _anyone_ a night off of work," he pointed out. "You haven't closed the dojo for even a since you opened it."

Kanda opened the passenger door of his car and helped Allen settle himself, growling softly. "Are you trying to make a point, moyashi?"

With another unnervingly disarming smile, Allen pulled Kanda down again and gave him a soft kiss, just a gentle press of lips and the barest edge of tongue. "Yes. Thank you, Kanda. It means a lot to me. I love you."

There was no response that Kanda could make that would usurp that single, simple statement. He blew out a soft breath, then leaned down again, pressed his lips against Allen's forehead, and murmured, "I love you, too, moyashi." Then he pulled back and shut the door on Allen's surprised face, smirking to himself at the simple pleasure it gave him to stun the younger boy speechless.

Even so, he knew he couldn't give that all the credit for the sun-warm glow in his chest.

* * *

For all that they had been dating for a month, they had taken the entire relationship slowly, as neither wanted to rush their feelings and perhaps ruin what they had built with so much effort. But now, with acceptance on both sides and feelings that strengthened with every touch, every glance, every light brush of lips, there was a need for _more_ simmering under the surface, and neither Kanda nor Allen felt like denying it for very long.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and Kanda had just returned from his last class at the dojo, pleased that he could spend the rest of the day with Allen, even if the younger still stubbornly refused to practice the pieces he would play in the concert at home, and had been spending even more time at the university. But today, as he had promised, he was home, and Kanda wanted to surprise him with dinner out, and maybe a walk on the beach. Had anyone accused him of being a romantic, he would have denied it, but for Allen, he found he didn't mind such things as much as he had once thought he would.

Carefully, he opened the door, wary of any excitable moyashis who had a tendency to leap on him when he came home—not that he minded. But the apartment was silent, despite the fact that Allen's shoes and crutches still sat by the door. Kanda frowned for a moment, then headed for the kitchen, which was empty. So was the living room, the bathroom, and the balcony. Feeling a trace of worry take root in his heart, Kanda quickly headed for the bedrooms. His was empty, but in the other…

Pausing at the door, he couldn't help the gentle smile that spread over his face. Allen was curled up on his bed, white hair spread out over the pale blue of his pillows, the bed neatly made underneath him. One hand rested on his chest, the other curled on the quilt beside his head. Kanda didn't think he'd ever seen anything quite so lovely. Noiselessly, he crossed the room and settled carefully on the edge of the bed beside Allen, then reached out and gently brushed a few strands of hair from one pale cheek.

Slowly, dreamily, silver eyes fluttered open, and Allen looked up at him with a drowsy smile. He caught Kanda's hand in his and brought it up to his face, pressing the back of the larger, sword-calloused hand against his cheek. Kanda felt something within him swell near to bursting, and leaned over, pressing a featherlike kiss to Allen's forehead. His dark hair fell around them in a sable curtain, and Allen smiled back, releasing his hand to instead wind both arms around Kanda's neck, pulling him down. Kanda let him, supporting himself with one hand as he lay half on top of the smaller man. Their lips met in another slow kiss that savored the heat between them, even as it increased it.

With a ragged breath, Kanda pulled back slightly, but only far enough to slide his free hand under Allen's loose button-down, carefully parting the buttons and letting it fall to either side of Allen's body. Allen caught his breath as Kanda slowly slid his hand up the smooth, pale skin, then reached for Kanda's shirt, pulling it up as much as he could, running his fingers over muscles and planes that left him just as breathless as Kanda's continuing kisses.

There was no hurrying, for all they had been anticipating this since even before their first kiss. Slowly, devotedly, they stripped each other, clothes fluttering to the floor as they were cast off. Bodies were explored and memorized, down to the very last detail, as all the while soft kisses were pressed to every exposed inch of skin. Allen learned that the nape of Kanda's neck was sensitive enough to make him gasp, while Kanda found that nipping Allen's neck left him speechless and gasping. They were _together_ in a way that left them both breathless, and they had hardly gone further than touching.

After an endless time that seemed far too short, Kanda finally moved up Allen's body, leaving kisses and marks the whole way, and met Allen's dazed mercury gaze with a meaningful look. Understanding, Allen nodded towards the dresser. Before he could speak, Kanda was already back, smoothing the lotion around his entrance and slipping a finger in. Allen groaned and arched, but did not let him stop until he was fully prepared, and Kanda was above him once more, a mere breath away from what they both knew would bind them irrevocably. After all, who would want to live without their other half, once they have known the ultimate completion?

"Kanda," Allen whispered, and Kanda met his silver-gilt eyes, the pure love there leaving him dazed. "Kanda, please."

"Yu," Kanda corrected gently, pressing their lips together and whispering the name into Allen's mouth. "Call me Yu, Allen."

Then he pressed forward, and Allen threw his head back at the feeling of heat and tightness and intimate invasion. He shuddered at the heat inside of him, the incredible fullness that stretched him nearly to the point of pain, yet was all pleasure. For a long moment, they remained motionless, feeling the connection, as close together as two people could ever be. Then Allen took a shuddering breath, pressed himself up against Kanda, and whispered, "Move."

Kanda did, and Allen had to close his eyes against the overwhelming feelings of _completion_ and _perfection_ and _wholeness_ that whirled through him. Slowly, carefully, as though he were precious, Kanda filled him and took him and wrapped him in a contentment that he had never known before. They settled in a slow, languorous rhythm that didn't leave enough breath in their lungs for anything more than gasps and short, panting moans as they rose together. All too soon, Allen felt as though he was dangling over some great precipice by a few thin, glimmering threads. Another breathless moment of eternity—where he and Kanda were the only two things that existed, had ever existed, and would ever exist—and then they were falling together in an endless, shining drop.

* * *

It was very, very much a non-perfect ending, Allen reflected happily, watching Kanda burn the eggs and drop the toast in the sink, but he wouldn't want it any other way.

Kanda paused in the middle of cursing anything within sight and cast Allen a wary glance. "Is there some reason you're smiling, moyashi?"

Allen just kept smiling, sliding off his chair and padding into the kitchen to wrap his arms around Kanda's waist. He wore only Kanda's too-large shirt, feeling far too languid to put on more clothes, and happy enough with the world in general that he hardly minded the black smoke coming from the stove. In a movie, they would have had a perfect breakfast, where the eggs were never too runny or too dry, and the coffee was hot the moment they emerged from their room. But this wasn't a movie. There was no coffee in the cupboard, and one of the stove's burners was broken, while the other was stuck on high. Kanda had splashed himself with water while filling the tea kettle, and crumbs from the toaster were caught in his long hair, and his scowl was more appropriate for a murder trial than a post-coital glow.

Allen had never been happier.

"I love you, Yu," he said softly, leaning up and pressing their lips together. Kanda hesitated for a moment, then gave in. He laughed softly and pulled his lover closer, returning the kiss with all the fierceness of the love he felt for this small, strong, quicksilver creature that he could finally call all his.

"I love you, too, Allen," he responded, then turned off the stove and scooped Allen up in his arms, bearing him into the living room and dropping onto the couch. Allen curled into his lap and sighed contentedly, letting his head rest on Kanda's shoulder as the elder stroked his hair with one hand.

With a smile, Allen asked, "Should we go out for breakfast, then?"

Kanda chuckled and drew him closer, letting his head rest against Allen's hair. "It's not like this is some romance movie where we have to make ourselves breakfast, so why not?"

Allen closed his eyes and nodded peacefully. Why not, indeed?


	7. Seventh Stage: Coagulation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _  
>  **A/N:**   
>  _   
>  _So this is short. Really, really short. But I think it sums up everything nicely. No redemption for Lavi, though. That makes me sad._

**Stages of Transformation**

**Seventh Stage:**

_  
**Coagulation**  
_

_The seventh and final operation of alchemy, the precipitation or sublimation of the purified Ferment from Distillation. It is first sensed as a new confidence that is beyond all things, a permanent vehicle of consciousness that embodies the highest aspirations and evolution of mind. Thus will you obtain the Glory of the Whole Universe. All Obscurity will be clear to you. This is the greatest Force of all powers, because it overcomes every Subtle thing and penetrates every Solid thing._

_This is the Purest form of Love._

_._

There was a wedding going on, bright and boisterous and merry beneath the cream and crimson roses that spread out overhead. The people laughed and danced and drank and ate, beautiful in multihued wedding finery. Allen and Kanda watched it all from their seat under one of the rose arbors, where they sat at a peaceful distance from the reveling crowd.

It was not their wedding, of course.

Still as optimistic as he had ever been, Allen insisted that it _would_ happen one day, that they would be able to marry and show everyone just how devoted they were, and had been for years now. Kanda, of course—ever the voice of dreary reason—did not agree, but he also did not disagree. He stayed silent, and never showed Allen the golden rings he had hidden away beneath the mattress, to one day replace the silver ones they wore now.

It had been years, many years, since those first fragile, tentative, delicate days, when all was glass that might shatter under them at any moment. Now, miles and ages from that, they were still the same as ever, just _more_. They squabbled as noisily and childishly as kindergarteners, and terrorized students, and were caught kissing at the most embarrassing times. But now their walks on the beach were longer, and their kisses sweeter, and their love even stronger. Kanda was still prickly, and Allen was still stubborn, and there was never a time when one was not with the other, or at least close by.

Allen was, as everyone had known he be, a concert pianist, and called a virtuoso. He still performed, and still composed, and every song he wrote was still for Kanda alone. Their lives were transformed into sweeping melodies, whirling from anger to passion to devastation and back to joy, mimicking every emotion he felt in their lives and releasing it into the audience like a caged beast set free. And people loved him.

As Kanda had once said flatly, when asked: how could you not?

Kanda had, as expected, continued with his dojo, and opened others, until their were branches in every large city for two hundred miles around. (None of the others, however, had quite the reputation of the original.) He still taught—because for Kanda to be inactive was for Kanda to go mad, which was hardly safe for the population at large—but fewer lessons now, and there was more time at home with the only person he could ever stand.

It was an incredible accomplishment, in a way, Allen thought, as he looked over the wedding guests below them. They had lasted far longer than most other couples, even without the ties of marriage to hold them to one another. They did not need golden rings and public vows to know that they were far better together than they ever were apart. They did not need the world to look at them and accept them. Their friends knew, and their families, and that we enough. Neither Kanda nor Allen was one to push their relationship into the spotlight. As it was, they were happy. They lived good lives. The early days—when they had both worked, and worked, and just barely managed to pay the bills that threatened to overwhelm them at any moment—were over now, and in the past, and their life was as peaceful and full of contentment as they had dreamed.

From the bottom of the short hill, Miranda waved to them, striking in a long white gown. Marie stood beside her, smiling a smile that looked as though it would never fade, and he beckoned them down before being swallowed up by the crowd again, whirled through the throngs of well-wishers to the sweet, laughing melody that Allen had written and played just for this occasion.

Kanda sighed and unwound himself from Allen's curled limbs, following his foster bother's silent order. "We should go down. If not, Marie will send the old man after us." He shuddered slightly at the thought, and Allen had to hide a smile. Tiedol was a kind man, if a little overwhelming, but his name was a taboo subject, even after so many years. Or maybe, Allen reflected as Kanda pulled him upright, _especially_ after so many years. After all, Tiedol had not changed a whit in all the time Allen had known him.

But Allen, feeling happy and not prepared to deal with a snarky Kanda (though some might have said he had no other character), collected his crutches, kept his thoughts to himself, and let Kanda lead him back into the festive gathering, until they reached the open circle of stone where the newly wedded couple had had their first dance. There Allen pulled them to a stop, and smiled up at Kanda when he turned.

"Dance with me, Kanda?" he asked.

And Kanda, because he would do anything Allen—even embarrass himself in front of all his friends and family, because as Allen knew by now, he _did not dance_ —the taller man simply sighed and pulled his partner into his arms, letting the crutches fall to the edge of the circle.

"I don't dance," he grumbled softly, though it was more to keep up appearances than to voice any real sort of protest.

Allen, as he always did, just smiled. "We're swaying in circles. Hardly dancing." He put his arms around Kanda's waist and leaned his head against Kanda's shoulder, letting Kanda bear the task of supporting his slightly unsteady legs.

It was an old argument, almost as old as they were, as a couple. Kanda rolled his eyes and didn't respond, and that too was normal.

How wonderful, Allen thought, to have old arguments, to have a _normal_.

It was not a fairytale. There was no magic spell to fix everything, no perfect prince or beautiful princess, no wicked dragon or evil sorcerer, and no simple catch-all of "and they lived happily ever after."

But for all of that, Allen decided, feeling the warmth of Kanda's arms around him and the steady beat of the heart within his chest, they were still happy, and they certainly lived.

And really, what more could there ever be to ask for?

**.**

**~.*.~**

**  
_And that, as they say, is that._  
**

**  
**~.*.~**  
**


End file.
